150th Anniversary of the Civil War

That is about right. The New York Times did a story about how a city alderman tried to make NYC its own country around the same time because of all the money that came there due to Southern states. The measure died when shots were fired on Sumter.

 

Slavery boiled down to the root cause, and Lincoln made it the main issue in prosecuting the war and rallying Union (free state) support for it.

At the outset, the war started because of economic differences between North and South (darn slaves taking good farm jobs from the white folk) and states rights (which again reflected the question of how slavery should be legislated). Not to mention the abolitionist Lincoln's election itself and his predecessor Buchanan's unwillingness to address the differences. But when you get to the bottom of it, yes, it was slavery.

 

And what was the "money" end of this? What did the South consider its most important, valuable "property?" What did they spend millions of dollars on, only to see the government telling them they could not own?

 

I think part of this, from accusations of PC to the revival of slavery as the key cause, comes from a shift that took place over the past 50 years. In 1961, most people saw the Civil War as a North vs. South event. Today, the emerging view is one that sees three main factions: Northern whites, Southern whites and blacks.

If it's strictly white Northerners in conflict with white Southerners, then the question of slavery vs. political power holds more weight. Lincoln's election and slavery held many political issues for the South: The definite end of the region's political dominance, the probable end of slavery's expansion into territories, and some fears of outright emancipation. If blacks, particularly in the South, are brought into the equation, then slavery takes on a more active role. In some parts of rural Virginia in the winter of 1860-61, enslaved workers stopped working, thinking that Abraham Lincoln was leading an army to liberate them. The separation of the Confederacy from a United States now less-than-thrilled with fugitive slave laws and looking to curb slaveholding power, was not some political issue for African Americans. That opens up new areas of research and new perspectives on old materials.

 

This deep into it and the first mention of states' rights?

I remember my trip to Chickamauga and Lookout Mountain... a grey cool damp March day maybe 12 years ago... just an eerie feeling...

 

Was it a city alderman? I thought it was Fernando Wood, who was the Mayor of NYC at the time?

As far as the war goes, there were several factors, of which slavery was the primary reason. The South wanted to preserve it, both because it was their economic lifeblood and because of their white-supremacist beliefs. They viewed the North as trying to not only ruin them economically, but also meddling in their affairs.

"States Rights" was a larger concern back then, because loyalty was much more local. In today's world, with TV, cars, planes, etc. everything is much closer. Back in 1861, a lot of people never went more than 100 miles away from their hometowns. Trains had only just really begun as a mode of transportation. People were more loyal to their state than to the whole country. Robert E. Lee, for instance, made his decision on the basis of where Virginia was going. Lincoln had even offered him the command of the Union army. But Virginia seceded and Lee went with his home state.

But that loyalty also was used by the Southern leaders to rally their people, most of whom didn't own slaves. They weren't going to fight for the plantation owner's right to own slaves. They were told that it was the North and evil Washington politicians trying to impose their beliefs on them.

Likewise, Lincoln couldn't use slavery to rally the people in the North. While you had your abolitionists, who were seen as pretty radical at the time, most people couldn't care less if blacks were slaves or were free. And they sure weren't going to lay down their lives for them. Instead, Lincoln rallied them to fight in order to preserve the country.

 

You are spot on.

 

Well said and spot on.

 

Sherman is America's greatest post-revolutionary hero. He's also one of the most misunderstood men in American history. He was able to do what it took to end the war because he had absolutely no political ambition. If not for Sherman the fighting might have lasted into the 1900s.

 

And that flag is still flown proudly down south.

 

If he were alive today, he'd be branded a war criminal on Daily Kos and the Huffington Post.